Chapter 175: A Seamless Plan
Earlier, when the Spade Hounds’ captain first laid out the contract, Viola didn’t just take the deal and sit on it. The second the call cut, she tossed her pad on the table, leaned back, and sighed.
"Of all the bastards out there... Xavier, huh," she muttered, running a hand through her hair.
She didn’t waste another second. Viola tapped her earpiece, dialing a number she had memorized too well. A moment later, Xavier’s voice answered.
"Yeah?"
"It’s me," she said flatly. "Listen, you’ve got a target on your back now. Not the usual scum—high-level. Assassins, hitmen, syndicate trash. They’ll be crawling out of every hole for you. So be careful."
"Touching," Xavier muttered, but his tone was sharper than usual. "You think they’ll come tonight?"
"They’ll come whenever they smell blood," Viola said. "Be ready."
That’s when Xavier pulled up the holo interface on his glasses, linking into his apartment’s security grid. A series of red dots blinked outside his floor plan. "Already have movement on the fifty-fifth. They’re here."
"Shit." Viola straightened in her chair.
"Switch with Lilia," Xavier ordered. "Send her to your apartment. You take her room in mine. If they breach, you’ll handle it."
Viola arched a brow, though he couldn’t see it. "Are you sure about that? Your girl might not like swapping beds."
"Not asking," Xavier said simply. "Do it."
A low chuckle left her lips. "Fine. But if she trashes my place, you’re paying for it."
Not long after, Viola slipped into Lilia’s room while the younger girl was shuffled across the hall to her apartment. It was seamless, like a well-practiced trick.
Xavier leaned back once it was done, his mind flicking back to the day he’d first moved into his new apartment. Back then, he’d already decided he wasn’t trusting the Tower’s "state-of-the-art" locks and sensors.
He’d called Angel. And she had. Within days, a team of blacklisted tech specialists rolled in under the cover of night and ripped apart the Nexus-issued system, replacing it with something custom. Invisible layers. Decoy alarms. Tripwires coded to recognize only specific signatures.
That was why, when the assassins thought they’d lucked out with an open kitchen window, Xavier wasn’t caught off guard at all. He’d already seen them coming. He was already moving pieces.
It was the assassins who sneaked into his apartment, it was Xavier who invited them in... to die.
After seamlessly taking care of the trouble and leaving one assassin alive, it was time for interrogation.
The assassin clenched his jaw, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. "You think I’ll talk?" he spat, though his voice cracked at the end.
Viola smirked. "I don’t think. I know."
She pressed the barrel deeper under his chin, letting the cold steel grind against his skin. "See, you’re not afraid of me. That’s fine. But her—" she flicked her chin toward Lyra.
Lyra crouched lower, claws dragging against the floor with a long, metallic scrrrk. Her eyes locked on his throat. Her breathing grew heavier, sharp teeth glinting under the dim light. She looked one twitch away from ripping his jugular out.
The assassin swallowed hard. Sweat dripped down his temple. "K-Kill me then. I’m not saying shit."
Viola’s laugh was soft, cruel. "That’s the wrong choice."
She stepped back just enough, lowering her gun. "Go on, Lyra. Take a taste."
Lyra moved in instantly, lips pulling back in a feral grin. She pressed her claws into his chest, slowly piercing through the armor, dragging out the sound of tearing metal and flesh together. The assassin screamed, his body thrashing against her grip. Blood bubbled around the punctures.
"Stop! STOP!" he cried out, his pride shattering under the searing pain. "I’ll talk!"
Viola lifted her hand, and Lyra froze, claws still sunk deep into him like hooks.
"Good boy," Viola muttered, raising her gun again. "Now, tell me. Who sent you?"
His breaths came ragged, every inhale wet with blood. "It was... Sterling. Alexander Sterling."
Viola’s eyes narrowed. "Thought so."
"He—he put a bounty. Fifty million. Wanted the kid dead within twenty-four hours." The words spilled out of him now, desperate to survive. "We—we weren’t supposed to touch anyone else. Just Xavier."
Silence stretched. Viola stared at him for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then—
BANG!
The shot echoed through the apartment. The assassin’s head snapped back, body slumping lifelessly to the floor.
Viola didn’t blink. She holstered her weapon, tapped the small earpiece tucked under her hair.
"You heard that?" she asked, her voice calm, as if she hadn’t just executed a man in cold blood.
There was a pause on the line, then Xavier’s voice came through. "Yeah. Thanks for the help. I owe you one."
Xavier leaned back against Seraphina’s couch, a cigarette smoldering between his fingers. He dialed another line. It rang once before a familiar honeyed voice answered.
"Well, well. If it isn’t my favorite trouble magnet," Angel purred. "Don’t tell me you already broke the toy I gifted you."
"Not yet," Xavier muttered. "Need a cleanup crew. Now. At my apartment. I’ve got bodies in the hall and more about to drop. You know how it is."
Angel chuckled. "You’re calling me like this in the middle of the night, mm? You must really miss me."
"Angel." His tone sharpened.
"Tch, fine, fine. Hold."
The line clicked, then shifted. A new voice entered—deep, steady, with a weight behind every syllable. Jason. The champion of the underworld himself.
"Xavier."
"Jason."
"I hear you’ve made a mess," Jason said, no judgment in his tone—just cold fact.
"Not me," Xavier corrected. "They came knocking. I opened the door."
Jason gave a small grunt of amusement. "Hnh. I’ll send in a crew. Everything will be handled—no traces, no noise. Your apartment will look brand new by sunrise. Every wall patched, every wire fixed, every drop of blood replaced with polish."
Xavier exhaled smoke. "Good. I’m not paying extra if they scratch my floor."
Jason actually chuckled at that. "Relax. By the time you walk back in, it’ll be like nothing ever happened. You just worry about staying alive until then. Bounties that high don’t disappear overnight, but I will pull some strings to make sure no one comes after you now."
The call ended there. Xavier leaned his head back, flicking ash into the tray. The game was moving faster now, pieces scattering across the board—and he was sitting right in the middle of it.
Then, he got up and kissed the sleeping Seraphina on the head and left her apartment.
"Alright, time to remove the Sterling family from the world."